Fullerton alum named teacher of the year while serving her alma mater

Editor’s note: The following is one of three profiles of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s teachers of the year. Read them all here. 

When Kristin Urbanski was a self-described shy student at St. Joseph School in Fullerton, she looked up to her teachers, whom she thought were “the smartest people on the planet.”

Those teachers had a way of roping her into lessons and helping her come out of her shell. Her experiences in the Catholic school system were so positive she decided early on she would someday become a teacher herself.

Not only did Urbanski wind back up at St. Joseph years later, but in May she won the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Elementary School Teacher of the Year – becoming the first St. Joseph teacher to win the award, according to principal Chrissie Ashby.

“To be able to come back and be part of that for new generations of students in a very real way is very special to me,” Urbanski said.

Urbanski teaches fourth- and fifth-grade English language arts along with fourth-grade religion. She aims to give her students autonomy and the opportunity to make choices in the classroom, from where they sit to what assignments they prioritize on a given day.

“Her students always have books in their hands,” Ashby said. “They’re always reading a novel as a class or independently. She really works on their comprehension in a variety of aspects, and then pulls in the vocabulary that’s so rich and robust in novels that it really takes everything to that next level, no matter what level she’s working with.”

After St. Joseph Fullerton, Urbanski graduated from the Institute of Notre Dame in Baltimore and headed to Philadelphia for college at St. Joseph’s University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in elementary and special education and her master’s degree in education with a reading specialist focus.

Now she is entering her 12th year as a teacher and her fourth at St. Joseph after eight years at Resurrection-St. Paul in Ellicott City. She jumped at the chance to apply to work at St. Joseph, which was a shorter commute and also remains her home parish.

Urbanski serves as the archdiocese’s “curriculum content expert” for religion, grades three to eight, meaning she maintains regular contact with the archdiocese’s religion educators and provides teaching resources. Last year she spent a week on the sixth graders’ retreat to NorthBay Adventure Camp in Cecil County, leading their prayer services and discussing with students how their Catholic faith calls them to be stewards of the earth. 

Her favorite moment last school year was the Catholic Challenge, an annual religion bee St. Joseph holds during Catholic Schools Week. For the first time, students competed in teams rather than individually.

“The facilitator would ask a question and I could hear the little buzz of activity around me as my students realized they knew the answer to that,” Urbanski said. “It was very exciting. They were such good sports and they celebrated each other.”

Urbanski recalled the surprise of winning Teacher of the Year in May. She was kneeling down to help a student with an assignment when a slew of visitors, including Ashby and superintendent Dr. Donna Hargens, arrived in her classroom.

“I know the caliber of teachers who work in the archdiocese, and I am honored and thrilled to have been named the Elementary Archdiocesan Teacher of the Year,” Urbanski said. “It’s a tremendous privilege.”

Ashby said it was richly deserved.

“I tell her a lot that if I could put her in the copy machine and make copies of her, I would,” Ashby said.

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